Iranian people demands are lawful

[Deputy Speaker of Parliament Ali Motahari talks about what is wrong with Iranian society, blaming the people for becoming too much “materialistic”.]

Host: What do you think is the biggest challenge of our country?

Ali Motahari: Let me put it in a nutshell, we have all become very materialistic. The fact that [people say] for example, “why we are helping Muslims in Myanmar (look at their conditions then and now), why we should help captives in Myanmar, we don’t know why we should help Palestinians.” Such words are not good.

This shows that our thinking has deteriorated. To me, it seems that the most important issue today is to go back to our ideological condition: our cause must be Islam. I don’t agree that the most important problem is the economic problem. Our most important problem is in ideas and spirits.

Ali Motahari: These songs that we hear have become a little cheap.

Host: It has more rhythm than content.

Ali Motahari: The words and the contents have become cheap. They are too much into eyes and eyebrows [of beloved]. Old songs could be interpreted in a mystical sense. But one cannot interpret these new songs in that sense. It says, for example, “I came to your house, and you weren’t there.” We cannot say it means God. That doesn’t make sense.

Host [mockingly]: If you had gone, He must have been there.

Ali Motahari: Yes. I think the songs should improve a little. Moreover, making so much lyrical and love songs is not necessarily good for the society. This means that we should always sing about eyes and eyebrows, dying for love, etc.